Racism

A woman in a neighborhood with houses both owned and rented walks to the public dumpster catty-cornered from her house, at the street-corner of a playground, carrying an old cardboard beer box with old phone books and other recyclable detritus in it.

As she's crossing the street to the dumpster, another woman literally RUNS up to her: 

Woman 2: "Where are you going with that?" 

Woman 1: "To this dumpster." 

Woman 2: Gesturing to beer logos on outside of Woman 1's box: "You're bringing that around our children? No! NO!"

Woman 1: Pointing to the shallow contents of box and wondering what children were involved: "It's phone books. I'm just throwing them out."

Woman 2: "I don't care what they are! You don't bring that around our children!"

Woman 1: Goes ahead and tosses box in dumpster, then walks in opposite direction of own home, for fear the upset racist will learn where she lives.

I lived in this mixed-race neighborhood in Austin for about 6 years, before I moved to NYC in 2007. During this time, the above happened. Also during this time: I got accosted by a black homeless guy at a neighborhood bus stop (the bus arriving just in time to rescue me); I had black gangstas on a bus telling me I didn't belong on that bus (thank you!) when I yelled at them to shut up with their loud-ass stories about who they'd f***ed that weekend (the driver had to stop the bus because they got so agitated with me); I had a black guy jump out of his car and reach in to my car window just because I'd honked at him while he was going 10 mph in a 30-mile zone; I had a black woman at a fast-food drive-thru jump out of her car and try to reach in to my car window just because I'd honked at her for not pulling up after several minutes. Oh yeah: There was also the black guy jacking off in daylight hours on the park bench in the playground catty-cornered from my house that I had to report to the police.

I was generally happy when I lived in this neighborhood, but the above black encounters were ridiculous. No normal people act like that.

p.s. And the above was all in Austin, a famously laid back, live-and-let-live town. Just imagine the sh** that goes on in Berkeley or Chicago!